With a new college football fast approaching, we asked our expert handicappers to share tips on how to prepare for the upcoming season. These tips can be utilized every year during the offseason.
College football features over 100 teams in the Division 1 Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and every year there are a lot of moving parts. It’s imperative to do your homework before a new season starts.
Entering a season without doing your homework can lead to busting your bankroll.
10 Tips for College Football Bettors Preparing for a New Season
The majority of casual CFB bettors will follow news during the season (August – January), but profitable handicappers spend the rest of the year preparing for the upcoming season.
Follow these tips to prepare for a new college football season:
How to Bet on College Football
#1 New Recruits and Redshirts
First identify what programs have a solid recruiting class for the upcoming season. The big dogs in CFB are always near the top, but look for smaller programs that have hit on some big recruits.
Impact 5-star and even 4-star recruits can propel smaller programs into big seasons.
You should also look at last year’s redshirt freshman. They’ll be starting this season and they’ve had a full year to practice and learn the playbook, so many will produce immediately.
#2 Team Roster Losses
Analyzing the players a team won’t have for the upcoming season is just as important.
Programs like Alabama have a lot of talent in the pipeline, but many programs don’t. If a program has lost a starting QB or leading defender to the NFL, that can negatively impact a team in a big way.
#3 Coaching Changes
This can prove to be a positive or a negative. In some cases, a coach needs to go if a team is performing poorly and adding some new coaches to the mix can turn a program around.
However, losing a winning coach happens a lot as well to smaller programs and they often take a step back the following season. Don’t forget to analyze new offensive and defensive coordinators.
Changing the team’s offensive or defensive scheme can take time before the players get used to it.
#4 QBs are King
Seek out teams that have QBs returning for a third or fourth season.
Having a QB that has proven himself with a program and knows the system inside and out can lead to a big jump in the win column. On the other hand, a new starting QB may take time to gel with the offense.
College Football Props Betting
#5 Offensive Line
A lot of handicappers study the skill position players, but the offensive line is even more important.
Teams with an experienced offensive line will often come into a new season playing well. Not only is the QB more comfortable, but the run game will also operate much better.
Offensive line is an extremely tough position to play without experience, especially when making the jump from high school to college. Take notes on the teams with multiple veterans on the o-line.
#6 Study the Schedules
Look for edges that you can identify in college football schedules, especially early on before conference schedules get underway. Many handicappers make bank during the first few weeks of the season.
Does a team with an experienced QB and o-line have some match-ups against a team with inexperienced players? Does an experienced defense match-up against a freshman/redshirt QB early in the year?
Don’t miss out on excellent betting opportunities the first few weeks by being unaware of great match-ups on the schedule. Mark prime match-ups on the schedule during the offseason to avoid missing out.
How to Bet on CFB Touchdown Props
#7 Watch Spring Practices
You can watch a lot of spring practices on Youtube nowadays. Teams will generally look to avoid injuries, so they aren’t similar to game situations, but they’re still helpful to watch.
Spring practices are important to look at the development of a team, especially if there were big roster changes during the offseason. Is a new QB missing wide open WRs? Is a RB looking slow?
You can answer a lot of questions by watching spring practices.
#8 Backtest Betting Systems
Did you notice any trends from the previous season that you believe will be profitable long-term?
The college football offseason is a great time to backtest betting systems.
For example, did you notice teams favored by 20+ points covering a lot? Spend some time going through the data to backtest the last several seasons to determine if the trend has held up long-term.
While no betting system is guaranteed to be profitable in the future, you may find some edges to exploit.
Tips for Handicapping 1st Year College Football QBs
#9 Read, Read and Read Some More
There’s plenty of excellent college football information to read online and in print.
We publish team previews for the top CFB teams every season here at ScoresAndStats. We also advise our readers to collect information and data elsewhere, including Youtube and Reddit.
The college football subreddit is filled with excellent analysis year-round. There are also teams with great subreddits where you’ll find hardcord fans discussing depth charts, recruits and much more.
There are also still some great print magazines with useful information for NCAAF handicappers.
#10 Prepare a Betting Plan to Execute
Our last tip is extremely important to your success as a college football bettor.
Don’t head into the season blind. Have a betting plan that you want to execute.
Determine your starting bankroll for the season, choose a staking plan to ensure you give yourself the best chance at making a profit by the end of the season.
Too many casual bettors will wager each week with no plan. Their bookie accounts go bust and need to be reloaded often because they’re wagering way too much on a single bet.
You can also determine what systems or strategies you want to utilize throughout the season.
If you don’t have time to handicap 100+ teams in college football, narrow your focus down.
A lot of profitable NCAA football handicappers only focus on a single conference. If you’re an expert on Big Ten football, don’t worry about betting games from the Sun Belt.
Good luck this season and bookmark this guide for upcoming seasons so you don’t forget to prepare.
